Sections 2–18 of the Southside beer empire
The last week of the year, Southside and Palmyra both finally hit their magical $100K mark for the first time. Duane is on the floor at both locations, handing out $100 bills as promised to every employee, shaking hands and dispensing thanks. Some particularly star-struck workers have only been with the company for a couple days, and can scarcely believe their good fortune.
Yet even as the calendar turns over, they don’t experience any sharp decline in sales. These weeks are nearly equally as strong. The reason for this, which Edgar has never experienced anywhere else before, due to heavily promoting the health angle in their name, is that Januarys are typically very strong here. It’s a phenomenon akin to how whenever Dr. Oz promotes a product on his TV show, they will experience a significant bump in sales for that item for the next few weeks. Which all but forces Dale and the vitamin managers to stay current with the Dr. Oz show. And as far as Januarys are concerned, this is serious new leaf territory, with resolutions and such, and people are temporarily determined to live a little better.
Alcohol sales experience the opposite, however, with not just the holiday boost gone, but the whole Dry January trend, tying in with the overall new year’s health kick. One mustn’t suggest such to certain vocal defenders of this category, however, who continue to charge forth unfettered.
For the record, Edgar isn’t opposed to the idea of having a beer merchandiser. It makes no sense when they don’t even have a bulk merchandiser, maybe, but in theory this beer one could be a cool, useful position as well. There are opportunities galore in this category, not just here but in the grocery business as a whole. One of the major problems seems to be the runaway trend of letting vendors stock their own product. For every guy like Larry from Triumph Distributing — who respects his boundaries, and is cool enough to bring Edgar the invoices with new items circled on them already — you’ve got a dozen jokers running riot all over the place. It’s driven him nuts as a shopper elsewhere, on countless occasions, to try something new, and like it enough to return to pick up some more…only to find that beer variety is not on hand a day or two later, possibly never is again, for no good reason. It isn’t a seasonal item, they just didn’t restock it. The sales rep had slung whatever product he had with him that day into every hole he saw, and left the building. Prices don’t match, they left outdated sale signs up intentionally, because why not? It might inspire a shopper to pick up their product, and the store has to deal with any refunds or complaints, not the long gone sales rep. So screw it.
Regarding the Executive Beer Hipster position, though, as Edgar likes to think of it, he finds the overblown culture surrounding this topic a bit ridiculous and borderline annoying. The same certainly applies to Jake Gifford specifically, and in spades. Much to his delight, though, evidence has recently surfaced to indicate he’s not the only one.
Though spending an overwhelming majority of his time wearing out one back and forth path at Southside, Jake is required to throw some token appearances in at the other locations. According to Liberty, this amounts to him breezing in for about five minutes, once a month. He visually inspects the scene, maybe brings out a couple of sixers from backstock, and then bolts. Which in all fairness is probably all that’s needed over there.
Up in Palmyra, however, they say he’s swinging through about once every two weeks, and will hang out for roughly half the day. Hang out being the operative phrase here for, which Edgar has witnessed firsthand himself, what Jake mostly does is stand at the entrance to the beer department, one hand on its accompanying hip, as he nods at passing customers and hopes to lure them into his den of awesomeness. Barring any victims, he maintains the same pose, but merely gazes across the land, as if appraising his empire.
As a result, the employees at Palmyra have a secret nickname for him: Plantation Master. This what they snickeringly refer to Jake as, behind his back. Still, though almost falling out of his chair the first time he hears this, Edgar wouldn’t say he’s had any specific problems with the guy thus far, two or three months in, whatever it’s been. That all changes the day of the Hop Supernova incident, though, an episode as asinine as it is, unfortunately, is nonetheless all too common.
It’s late afternoon and Jake has already left for the day, when Edgar is down in the beer department with some invoices, attempting to solve a few mysteries. One ongoing issue with the beer invoices is that many items are seasonal, yet they are not labeled as seasonal on the invoice or anywhere else, even though it turns out they’re reusing a preexisting UPC. So you either have to continually change the name in your system, every two months, which is a seemingly needless hassle, or label this as Seasonal Six Pack or something, which pretty much everyone on the floor dealing with the beer hates. Not to mention that people are continually sending him “new” items that are not in fact new, because this UPC does scan, or he’s spending a great deal on the floor like this tracking down, only to determine the same.
But none of that relates to the day’s major controversy. He’s in the middle of the department, with his clipboard and some invoices, when a well-dressed older gent, checking out the beer, casually asks him if they have Hop Supernova. And his timing could not be better in this regard, as Edgar had already circled this item, a few invoices back, as one that he couldn’t find. The paperwork says this was received today, however, just a couple of hours ago, so surely they still have it on hand.
He runs to check out the back dock, to no avail, and happens to bump into Destiny in his travels. She suggests that it might be a special order, and if so Jake could have stashed it in the front office. When the two of them arrive up there, sure enough, they find four six packs of Hop Supernova, but there aren’t any notes anywhere to indicate this is a special request ordered for a customer.
Therefore after locating this current shopper, patiently waiting still in the beer section, they bring him to the front of the store. Edgar calculates what the retail needs to be on this, and the gentleman happily pays it, leaving the store with a six pack and a smile. Destiny and Edgar are even high-fiving over this teamwork experience, racking up a potentially missed sale that was not cheap by any means. Feeling that this seems like the next natural step, Destiny even creates a spot in the cooler for the remaining three six packs, as Edgar adds them properly to the system.
All good cheer dissipates the next day when Jake arrives on the scene, and positively comes unglued. He yanks the three containers of Hop Supernova and shoves them back in the office, then jumps Destiny and Edgar’s case for selling the fourth. So wait, was this in fact being reserved for a special order? No, not at all. But it turns out that how Jake Gifford wants to handle such impossibly trendy items as this is to stash them away, and make them only available upon request.
This ranks among one of the dumbest things Edgar has ever heard. And actually, upon closer inspection, this exact scenario is what happened, but Gifford’s still not pleased. He doesn’t want to sell this stuff to some “random” customer he didn’t even see. He wants to cherrypick himself who does and doesn’t get the Hop Supernova. Not only that but according to Jake, Edgar’s price “should be” something else, far lower, because this is what “the guy across the street” sells it for.
That Edgar wasn’t even aware of any guy across the street is among the lesser points here. As far as he can tell, it’s still just a pile of rubble over there, for pricey high rise condos still under construction. But he’s guessing it’s a similar situation with Corey referring to Salvadore’s as “the gas station a mile down the road,” though, a euphemism which is nonetheless meant to convey that a) Edgar should somehow stay on top of what this specific competitor is charging for everything, and b) that HHM is going to change their pricing policy to accommodate this.
As it turns out, Corey is also doing the exact same thing, with the Hop Supernova and a bunch of other ultra trendy crap. But Edgar thinks this secret handshake buffoonery is beyond silly. Call him a fringe loony, but see, the thing to do is, in his humble estimation, when you get product into the store…put it out on the floor! Sell it! Whenever anybody wishes to purchase this item, anybody at all, you let them! This is generally perceived as a good thing!
That’s his hot tip for the day, which they can utilize as they please. Yet even Corey would not go as far as to chew people out for actually selling a product, at its correct margin. It’s true that during the holidays, they will lock up some incredibly expensive champagne, to curtain theft, but there are signs posted in a few key places advertising the offerings and their prices. Hop Supernova and its too cool cousins have none of that, they are just hiding out in some office, in hopes that someone will ask. This is his first indication that dealing with Jake Gifford is probably going to turn into an ugly experience.
